Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1918 — The Newcomer [ARTICLE]

The Newcomer

By LINCOLN ROTHBLUM

(Copyright, ms, N,w ’ l *' Behind every blind on Maple square, polled in the face of the warm after* noon sun, lingered eager eyes straining tn see all that was to be seen as the brawny teamsters unloaded the newcomer’s household belongings. Moving in Maple square, it must be understood, was an event With the exception of the Santleys, who had left as mysteriously and precipitately as they had come (and the talk about which had not yet subsided, though it was two years past), goings and comings were rarities. In fact, the absence of "For Rent” signs had become a source of great pride to all the householders on the square, and it is little to be wondered that the slim girl who stood so resolutely on the bottom step of the former Santley home should cause such agitated interest. Mrs. Gregory, wrapper-clad, was already regretting that some married couple “with two or three children and likely to remain permanently” were not taking the premises. As the piano was laboriously unloaded, each watcher came to the conclusion the newcomer was a piano teacher, come to turn Maple square into a workshop. The girl, unconscious of the hostile sentiment aroused as if by a single connecting circuit, entered the house and. could be seen through the large bay window winking some effort to create order out of the chaotic jumble of chairs, boxes and barrels. As Grocer McCann’s two boys mounted the steps, a dozen housewives decided their larders needed replenishing, and Grocer McCann, knowing his trade, did a halfhour’s rushing business, his tongue only slowing up when he made change. “Yes, Mrs. Gregory,” he went on, weighing out a niggardly pound of dry limas, “she walks in here dround eleven this morning (seems as if she must’ve got in on the ten-fifty) and gives me a good-sized order; asks t® have it delivered. I was for marking the bill C. O. D., but she up and pays me. That’s what I'd call a business woman. “Shall I wrap up some of them prunes for you, Mrs. Gregory?” he broke off as he caught that unfortunate lady in the act of sampling one, “I just opened the box.” Mrs. Gregory nodded unwillingly. “And are your two boys helping our new neighbor?” she asked. The grocer walked over to the counter on which he exhibited his stock of cheeses. Raising the glass cover, he waited, knife in midair. “Yes,” he finally answered, as the knife descended with unswerving accuracy on fifteen cents’ worth, "she asked me if I knew a couple of fellows who’d help her set up the beds and get things sort of straightened out.” He paused to wipe the knife on his apron. “She offered to pay well; ’n’ Ed an’ Ben ’ll be needin’ the extra money with school startin’, so I sent them over. She’s a right smart woman, and knows a deal about groceries —more as a great many of married folks.”

Mrs. Gregory tried to look haughtily offended. Cupping the bags of limas, prunes and cheese In the crook of her left arm, and gathering her skirts together with her right, she swept out of McCann’s Cash grocery, secretly vowing never to set foot in there again; only on his special Tuesday sales, when, it must be admitted, he sold, without any qualms of conscience, nineteen-cent cans of peaches marked down to twenty-nine. The weekly meeting of the Maple Square Ladies’ club had an unusually large attendance, compelling Mrs. Gregory, at whose home the club convened that week, hastily to dispatch her small daughter via the back door for the loan of additional china with which to accommodate her guests. Mrs. Chandler, president, and very conscious of her new green silk dress, rapped for order. Mrs. Chandler liked to rap for order. She felt the gavel lent her dignity. The gavel had been donated by Mr. Chandler on his wife’s Installation into office. Thrice elected president of the Main Street Business Men’s Association, he understood parliamentary law and how such things should be conducted. But today, neither gavel nor green silk dress could hush the buzzing voices and shortly a very ruffled Mrs. Chandler announced the meeting adjourned. Mrs. Gregory, emerging from the kitchen with the china hastily garnered, commenced ■to distribute her stock supply of cream-cheese-and-nut-sandwiches, “so satisfying and easy to prepare,” as she once confided in an unguarded moment. —\ It was Miss Tucker, richer in dollars than in sense, who fired the first shot. “We all forgot to suggest our new neighbor for membership; a committee ought to be appointed to call on her.” Mrs. Chandler did not like the spinster—she had not liked her, infact, ever since that lady had looked with too favorable eyes upon her only son Walter. “You live next door to our new neighbor,” she commented, glancing up; “have you called on Miss Tucker wagged her head with negative emphasis. “Since that Bant*

“I must agree with-you,” Mrs. Chandler assented. “I am particularly averse to unattached females at all times. Walt’s last letter was all about some vampire who has him in her clutches.” _ ; ; Miss Tucker, forgetting she waA included in the category of “unattached females,” joined in the general laugh. All knew Mrs. Chandler’s husky son and his doting mother’s War on luring vampires. The cuckoo’s four o’clock warning seht the Maple Square Ladies’ dub scurrying to their respective homes, where soups and stews boiled and stewed to a rapid demise. Mrs. Chandler, obliged to pass the newcomer's home, had decided to walk past head up. She would have walked past nose up, but an unkind Providence had endowed her with a plebian nose, persistently downcast Out of the corner of her eye she could see the unwelcomed neighbor rocking on the porch. She was aggravatingly pretty in white dimity as she rocked and crocheted, industriously whistling a catchy tune. It was a warbled trill, Mrs. Chandler afterwards was sure, which made her step’ on the orange peeling, and the run of notes was still in her ears as her pride and person fell. It all happened so quickly, she never could determine how she found herself, nightgowned and doctored, in the home of this "person.” Jt was Dr. Nutting, himself, who was murmuring something about “absolutely not to be moved.” Incoherent thoughts, sharply Interrupted by ugly pains in the leg, furrowed her brow.

"Now, don’t let it worry you,” a soft and very gentle voice was saying. "Doctor says it’s a serious fracture, and you must not be moved; but you’re ever so welcome.” The bright smile and clear, blue eyes confirmed the words. In the many weeks that followed, Mrs. Chandler came to love her pretty and competent nurse; she had ho daughter of her own and experienced for the first time novel appreciation of little acts of tenderness and consideration. “Perhaps you’ve been wondering,” she abruptly began one afternoon, “why none but my husband has come to visit me here. You see the folks ’round here don’t take kindly to new people, and we were all so disappointed in the Santleys, who last rented this house, we felt we had to be careful about the next tenant. “But,” she added, vehemently, “when I get on my feet again, Pm going to tell the Maple Square Ladles’ club that you’re better than all of them put together. Why, you’re the first girl I’ve es Ar met that I’d want Walt to marry.” The girl blushed and her eyes glistened. « “ “You know,” Mrs. Chandler continued, proudly, “Walt’s my boy—and Pm hoping you’ll blush like that when he sees you. He’s coming home soon.” Autumn had come to Maple square and found Mrs. Chandler'well on the road to complete recovery. Propped up in a cozy armchair before the large bay window, she watched in excited anticipation the children shuffling through the fallen leaves swept into the gutter. She was thinking of her son, expected that day, and of the debt she owed this girl who had taken her into her home and heart. Truly she had learned goodness was more than living straight—it was loving gentleness and generous kindness. “Look,” she cried out, striving to rise from her armchair, “there comes Walt! Call to him before he passes by! Quickl” And Mrs. Chandler was due to another shock as she saw her stalwart son enfold the newcomer in his arms —just as if he had done it many times before. "Sure, mother,” he was explaining once again, “didn’t we know how you distrusted all girls? So we hit upon the plan of Little Sweetheart coming here first —for I knew she’d make you love her.” Mrs. Chandler smiled through her tears. “She’s done more than that, Walt.”